ORDER BY Clause – SQL is used to sort the data in ascending or descending order, based on one or more columns. Some database sorts query results in ascending order by default.
Syntax:
The basic syntax of ORDER BY clause is as follows:
SELECT column-list FROM table_name [WHERE condition] [ORDER BY column1, column2, .. columnN] [ASC | DESC];
You can use more than one column in the ORDER BY clause. Make sure whatever column you are using to sort, that column should be in column-list.
Example:
Consider the CUSTOMERS table having the following records:
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+ | ID | NAME | AGE | ADDRESS | SALARY | +----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+ | 1 | Ramesh | 32 | Ahmedabad | 2000.00 | | 2 | Khilan | 25 | Delhi | 1500.00 | | 3 | kaushik | 23 | Kota | 2000.00 | | 4 | Chaitali | 25 | Mumbai | 6500.00 | | 5 | Hardik | 27 | Bhopal | 8500.00 | | 6 | Komal | 22 | MP | 4500.00 | | 7 | Muffy | 24 | Indore | 10000.00 | +----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
Following is an example, which would sort the result in ascending order by NAME and SALARY:
SQL> SELECT * FROM CUSTOMERS ORDER BY NAME, SALARY;
This would produce the following result:
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+ | ID | NAME | AGE | ADDRESS | SALARY | +----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+ | 4 | Chaitali | 25 | Mumbai | 6500.00 | | 5 | Hardik | 27 | Bhopal | 8500.00 | | 3 | kaushik | 23 | Kota | 2000.00 | | 2 | Khilan | 25 | Delhi | 1500.00 | | 6 | Komal | 22 | MP | 4500.00 | | 7 | Muffy | 24 | Indore | 10000.00 | | 1 | Ramesh | 32 | Ahmedabad | 2000.00 | +----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
Following is an example, which would sort the result in descending order by NAME:
SQL> SELECT * FROM CUSTOMERS ORDER BY NAME DESC;
This would produce the following result:
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+ | ID | NAME | AGE | ADDRESS | SALARY | +----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+ | 1 | Ramesh | 32 | Ahmedabad | 2000.00 | | 7 | Muffy | 24 | Indore | 10000.00 | | 6 | Komal | 22 | MP | 4500.00 | | 2 | Khilan | 25 | Delhi | 1500.00 | | 3 | kaushik | 23 | Kota | 2000.00 | | 5 | Hardik | 27 | Bhopal | 8500.00 | | 4 | Chaitali | 25 | Mumbai | 6500.00 | +----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+